


baby, mine

by argentumn



Series: Hero's Immortal [CorNyx Week 2019] [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: CorNyx Week 2019, Gen, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Snapshots, baby!Prompto to teen!Prompto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-05-16 20:36:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19325626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argentumn/pseuds/argentumn
Summary: CorNyx Week 2019, Day OnePrompt: Cor comes back from Gralea with baby!Prompto“It’s been a week, Cor.” Regis looks between the child playing in the corner and the Marshal. “You’ve decided?”Prompto — because Cor had to call himsomethingother than "kid" — stops moving as the room falls silent. They’re still unsure of his age, big enough to already begin walking with assistance but unable to form more than a word or two.





	baby, mine

**Author's Note:**

> and so CorNyx Week 2019 begins!  
>  ~~I'll forever be salty that Kingsglaive gave us Nyx and then took him from us~~.

He thinks of the plethora of consequences that could come from that one decision he made in the spur of the moment, grabbing anything of importance from that research lab in Gralea and hightailing it out of the building before he could be blown to smithereens.

He may be called the Immortal, but he has no interest in testing the theory.

There’s a bundle of blankets in the back of the borrowed car, hidden amongst a bunch of gear and a discarded jacket when Cor flashes his ID at the guards and is waved through to Insomnia. There’s no sound other than the car radio, quietly playing some recent pop song, while he drives towards the Citadel. He’s just waiting for the moment the bundle wakes up, realises it’s not where it should be and starts crying.

The moment doesn’t come.

Cor reaches the Citadel with practised ease, despite the heavy rush hour traffic. He hesitates only a second, before reaching in and lifting the bundle from the backseat. He startles at the blue-violet eyes looking back at him but clenches his jaw and goes to meet the King.

No one questions him or the bundle in his arms as he makes his way through the Citadel’s winding hallways.

There are Crownsguard stationed outside the door to the throne room, but they let him pass unimpeded. He’s Cor the Immortal, they don’t give him a second glance, and yet.

“Marshal, what is that?”

The guard on his right speaks out and is pointing to the bundle.

“At the moment,” Cor shifts to make sure the guard can’t accidentally get a peek, “this is none of your business.”

The guard looks surprised but doesn’t push the issue. Cor doesn’t let himself dwell on it, instead, focusing on pushing open the doors and coming face to face with the King.

Regis is waiting for him, sitting lopsidedly on his throne, resting a cheek on his left fist and dozing. It makes Cor want to smile, but then Clarus is nudging the King and Regis’ gaze finds Cor at the bottom of the stairs.

“Marshal, welcome back. Your report was brief,” he pauses, eyeing the bundle Cor still hasn’t relinquished, “and clearly missing some key information.”

Cor chooses not to say anything, simply walking up the first set of stairs before uncovering the bundle and showing the child to Regis. The boy is awake, blue-violet eyes glancing at the faces in his line of vision. He stays quiet in Cor’s arms, clutching the ragged blanket in his little fists and blinking sluggishly. He thinks he hears Clarus suck in a sharp breath, — but maybe it was the King — staring down at the baby.

“Care to explain, Marshal?”

It’s Clarus who speaks, body rigid with tension and overly cautious. Regis is too enraptured by the tiny person in Cor’s arms to take notice.

“It will be fully detailed in my final report,” Cor shifts the baby slightly, tucking him more into the crook of his left elbow to free his right arm, “but the short version is that the Empire is experimenting with children. Specifically,” an image of rows of pods flashes past his eyes, “cloning them.”

The sharp intake of breath is from Regis, this time. The King sits back in his seat, a haunted shadow cast over his face. They had all known Niflheim was conducting shady (a _polite_ way of putting it) business, but _cloning_ _experimentation_ was a whole new ball game that they weren’t sure Lucis was prepared for.

And now Cor had stolen away one of the infants belonging to their… _program._

By all technicalities, the baby was kidnapped and Cor was now a criminal, but no one was going to mention that.

What the Council didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

“So, I take it you have a suggestion as to what we do next with the child, then?” Regis’ voice has an edge of amusement.

He doesn’t.

He hadn’t thought that far ahead if he was completely honest. He hadn’t thought he’d  _make it_ this far.

They had been so deep into Niflheim territory, Cor hadn’t been sure he’d make it back to Lucian borders before Imperial soldiers swooped in. Dragging along a kidnapped  _baby_ made the trek back all the more difficult, having to avoid any and all people if the child wasn’t well hidden first. His hesitation is something Regis seems to have anticipated.

“A week, Marshal, then we’ll need an answer.”

Cor bows slightly, recognising a clear dismissal and leaves the throne room.

♢♢♢

A week later, Cor sits in his office and tries to ignore the cooing coming from the corner.

Prompto is playing with some toy Monica had brought along, while the woman herself sits on the edge of Cor’s lounge and watches the child intently. Cooing and talking to Prompto in an infinitely maternal way, Monica doesn’t even glance away from her charge when Cor’s office door opens and the King himself enters the room.

Regis waves his hand dismissively when Cor moves to stand and sits down in the chair meant for visitors.

Cor only thinks Regis is starting to look far too old for his thirty years.

“It’s been a week, Cor.” Regis looks between the child playing in the corner and the Marshal. “You’ve decided?”

Prompto — because Cor had to call him  _something_ other than “kid” — stops moving as the room falls silent. They’re still unsure of his age, big enough to already begin walking with assistance but unable to form more than a word or two.

Regis only watches in amusement, as Prompto pushes himself up from the floor and staggers — with all the grace of a baby anak — from the corner, around Cor’s desk and demands for Cor to pick him up with slaps to the Marshal’s knees.

Neither man or child notice when Monica slips out the door.

Cor heaves a long-suffering sigh for the sake of image and lifts Prompto, setting the boy on his knee and allowing curious fingers to grip the edges of his jacket. He sets his expression to be as flat and unimpressed as physically possible when Regis tries and fails to muffle his snickering.

King of Lucis, Regis may be. But that didn’t mean Cor couldn’t think his King, his  _old friend,_  was a dick.

“I’ll be expecting all the paperwork on my desk by tonight, then.”

Cor might take some twisted form of satisfaction at seeing the King’s face become confused and he lets him squirm for a moment.

“Or do you not want me to be Prompto’s father?”

Regis laughs, loud and obnoxious in a way only a childhood friend can accomplish, wheezing as he reaches for his phone.

“Clarus owes me a hundred gil.”

Yeah, Cor’s King is a _dick._  
  


* * *

  
“Dad! I’m leaving!”

“Be careful! I’ll be at the Citadel until late, so go home with Noct, okay?”

“‘Kay! Bye, love you!”

The front door slams shut and Cor shakes his head.

Eight years old and with a presence like a hurricane, Prompto was growing up  _way too fast_ for Cor’s liking. It feels like only yesterday that Cor had kidna— _saved_ Prompto from the Niflheim laboratory. Now, he’s finishing the weekly meal prep that he stacks in the fridge as Prompto barrels out of the house, off to school.

The week following Prompto’s arrival in Insomnia was possibly the most  _exhausting_ in Cor’s life, with piles of paperwork and a constant stream of people revolving in and out of his office to either congratulate him or just to get a peek at his new son.

Clarus had eventually arrived with his own son and an infant Prince in tow, for a visit.

Like a fish to water, Prince Noctis took to Prompto. They were nigh on inseparable and where one was, the other was likely not far behind.

So it was of little surprise when Regis had agreed to enrol Noctis into a public school, on the condition that Prompto would be there, too.

The Council, of course, had thrown an absolute  _fit_. But try as they might, Regis would not be swayed and the paperwork had been filed.

Cor rubs a hand across his face, tired.

Late nights at the Citadel, sitting at his desk behind a pile of paperwork was becoming the norm and the lack of sleep was getting to him. He could tell Prompto was trying not to worry, doing his best to be self-sufficient and not asking Cor for more of his time.

Having the Prince as a friend helped, Cor guessed. Having someone to spend time with, instead of coming home to an empty house, right after school was — in Cor’s opinion — an infinitely better option.

He’s spending too much time lately, thinking about Prompto and if he’s happy with how Cor is raising him. He tries reminding himself that if something wasn’t working, — if Prompto wasn’t happy — _someone_ would say so, but he still worries.

His phone rings and jolts Cor out of his thoughts, hand movements from where they’d been packing food on autopilot, ceasing. Reaching, Cor finds his phone on the counter where he’d thrown it out of the way.

There’s a number on the screen that he doesn’t recognise.

♢♢♢

Prompto is sitting on the lap of a glaive Cor doesn’t know.

There are tear tracks down the blond’s cheeks, accompanying scraped knees and the death grip on the kingsglaive uniform. The glaive has arms around the child, allowing the hands gripping his uniform and there are braids in the man’s hair that fall over his shoulder and just brush the top of Prompto’s head. He’s mumbling something into Prompto’s hair that Cor can’t hear.

He wants to go straight to his son, but Cor makes himself turn and face down the school’s headmaster. Classes haven’t even started yet, which makes Cor even more furious. His anger grows as he’s told of how Prompto was approached just a block away from the school by some older students. The way he talked, the man was making it sound like Prompto was at fault, somehow.

“Don’t you _dare_ lie about it.” The glaive is seething, glaring daggers in the balding man’s direction. “They practically _ambushed_ him, Marshal.”

“Mind telling me how you know that, Glaive?”

“Ulric, sir. I was on my way to report for work and saw it happen.”

Cor nods. Then he turns and slams a hand down on the headmaster’s desk. “I expect a list of names sent to the Citadel by this afternoon. If it is not received, I’ll be informing the department head that you’re not fit to run a school, is that clear?”

The headmaster nods shakily and Cor turns to leave.

“D-Dad?”

Ulric relinquishes his hold on the child and Prompto stumbles his way over to Cor, who scoops him up easily.

“I’m here, Prom.”

Prompto only buries his head into Cor’s shoulder and breathes.

They reach the front gates without running into anyone else, Ulric following a few steps behind like a shadow. Prompto seems to watch the glaive over Cor’s shoulder with enraptured interest. Cor can’t help the feeling of warmth spread through him when Ulric catches onto Prompto’s gaze and indulges his curiosity by pulling out a pocket knife and spinning it on a finger.

“Are— Are we going home?”

Prompto’s voice is quiet against Cor’s ear when they reach the car, his blue-violet eyes still trained on the knife in Ulric’s hand.

“Would you rather come to work with me?”

He really shouldn’t, because work means Prompto will spend endless hours confined in Cor’s office if no one takes babysitting duty and there’s nothing Prompto hates more than being stuck in one place for too long.

Prompto nods anyway.

Ulric hovers as Cor makes sure the blond is secure in the backseat and Cor feels a distinct urge to roll his eyes.

“Get in, Ulric. We’re going to the same place, anyway.”

The glaive hesitates for half a second.

“Yes, sir.”  
  


* * *

   
Prompto crashes into Cor’s office with all the excitement of a teenager having been shown something he probably shouldn’t have.

“Dad! Look what Nyx got me!”

Somewhere between that day when Prompto was eight to now, the glaive had gone from _Sir_ , to _Mr. Ulric_ , to _Nyx_. Cor can’t say he dislikes the progression the man had made with his son.

Said glaive appears in the doorway right behind the blond, leaning against the frame and crossing his arms over his chest. There’s a pleased smirk on the man’s face when Cor looks up from his work, and Prompto is pretty much vibrating out of his skin with enthusiasm. Cor’s expecting to be shown some sort of dirty magazine if he’s honest.

There’s an old camera in Prompto’s hand.

Cor spends the next ten minutes of his day listening to Prompto gush about how  _incredible_ the vintage polaroid is and the fact that he needs to find a shop that sells the kind of film the camera takes. He’ll admit he tunes out for a minute, just watching Prompto’s hands as he turns the camera over and over with nimble fingers. He’ll never get used to his son’s boundless energy, or how well Nyx seems to have integrated himself into their little family.

Prompto pulls him back out of his thoughts with a hurried kiss to the Marshal’s cheek, depositing a similar one to Nyx’s and then disappearing down the hall.

Nyx is still in the doorway, watching Cor as he turns back to the paperwork spread out in front of him.

Cor doesn’t quite know where they stand, even after the several years they’ve spent practically co-parenting Prompto, his relationship with Nyx was strange, to say the least.

The lingering glances, soft touches and the trust built around raising Prompto are new territory for Cor. If anything, the closest he’d come was leaving Prompto with Monica when work took him away from the capital.

Whatever it is, it makes Cor’s insides feel warm and slightly mushy, when Nyx sends him a little wave as he’s called away.

He shrugs to himself and focuses his attention back to the paperwork waiting for him.

They’ll work it out, eventually.

**Author's Note:**

> come ~~cry~~ yell about ffxv on [twitter](http://twitter.com/argentulric) with me
> 
> **Do not repost or redistribute this work on any other site/app. If you see this work anywhere but on AO3, it has not been posted/shared with consent.**


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